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]]>At Emerson Elementary in Owosso, Michigan, Principal Jessica Aue is helping her teachers transform their approach to student intervention with the innovative Child Study Team—a unique initiative that delivers personalized academic intervention to address the whole child.
Here’s how Jessica and her team have established an empathetic yet results-driven process that’s changing students’ lives, empowering teachers, and strengthening family relationships.
Child Study Team: A Collaborative Strategy for Personalized Academic Intervention
A Child Study Team (CST) is a collaborative group of educators, psychologists, social workers, and parents who come together to identify and address challenges affecting students’ academic and social success. The purpose of the team is to implement effective, personalized academic intervention strategies that support the school’s goal of educating the whole child—not just through academic metrics, but by understanding their personal experiences, relationships, home life, and challenges.
The Child Study Team at Emerson believes that every child is more than just their academic scores. They dig deep to understand the whole child—exploring hobbies they enjoy, any trauma they’ve endured, their family dynamics, and their social environments. This holistic perspective helps determine personalized interventions that truly resonate.
The Child Study Team is about collaboration — bringing together different perspectives to create the best possible outcomes for students.
Identifying and Implementing Targeted Academic Intervention Strategies
It’s a comprehensive process to identify students needing intervention and the type of intervention they need. But Emerson’s team has a successful process put into place to ensure all students get a fair chance at success.
Here are the steps to the CST process:
- Identification and Data Collection – Before students begin receiving extra support, teachers and staff collect comprehensive data through a prepared packet. This includes academic performance, social behaviors, and input from parents, all of which ensures the team has a complete view of the child’s challenges and needs.
- Collaborative Planning – The CST meets to create an action plan, assigning tasks to specific members. Educators and specialists work together to outline specific, research-based interventions.
- Implementation and Flexibility – The Title I team carries out interventions, which can be one-on-one, in small groups, or within the classroom. Flexibility is key—if a child isn’t progressing, the team evaluates alternative options.
- Follow-Up and Accountability – The team then holds ongoing meetings to evaluate progress, discuss plans, and refine strategies as needed, working closely with each student’s teacher.
The Title I team may lead the intervention strategies and implementations, but collaborating with the students’ teachers is also key to the CST success. Jessica recognizes the importance of the CST working closely with the rest of the staff. “The teachers are the experts,” she says. “Trust them. If there’s a lack of trust, figure out why and address it.” This trust allows flexibility and creativity within the intervention process while ensuring students receive the highest level of care and support.
Balancing Data and Relationships in Successful Academic Intervention
A huge strength of Emerson’s Child Study Team lies in its ability to balance data-driven decision-making with the context that comes from strong personal relationships with students and families.
“We use data, of course—things like test scores and progress monitoring results,” Jessica explains. “But we also know what students like to do and what their home life is like. This context helps us create interventions that are effective.” Jessica also emphasizes, “The people on your team make a huge difference. Our teachers, social workers, and psychologists know each student so well, which allows us to make better decisions. They’re not just staff members—they’re truly advocates for our kids.”
Prioritizing relationships has had ripple effects. Jessica’s philosophy of involving families closely in the process has fostered trust and collaboration between parents and the school. Families know they can rely on the team to care for their child while also holding them accountable, creating a balance of empathy and high expectations.
The focus on the whole child has made Emerson Elementary’s approach stand out. Teachers and staff have seen firsthand how a deeper understanding of each student leads to better outcomes—whether that’s catching phonics gaps missed by traditional assessments or creating unique behavioral interventions tailored to a student’s personality.
Scaling Academic Intervention Strategies: The Emerson Child Study Team Model
While Jessica acknowledges that the close-knit nature of Emerson Elementary helps make their Child Study Team successful, she believes the model can be scaled with the right commitment.
Some of her recommendations for scaling include:
- Consistency in Documentation – Ensure every team member is on the same page regarding student needs using standardized forms.
- Clear Action Plans – Assign specific responsibilities to team members and set deadlines to maintain accountability.
- Commitment to Relationships – Prioritize building strong relationships with families and students to sustain the success of the CST process.
- Open Communication – Maintain consistent and open lines of communication to avoid any potential mistakes that could ultimately impact the student negatively.
- Training and Resources – Ensure all team members, from teachers to social workers, have the tools and professional learning they need to succeed.
The Child Study Team at Emerson Elementary goes beyond typical interventions. It represents a philosophy rooted in trust, empathy, and high expectations for every student. By prioritizing relationships, using data effectively, and empowering staff to make professional decisions, Emerson models what intervention can look like when the whole child is considered.
For principals, educators, and parents wondering how to get started, Jessica offers this advice: “Be consistent, value relationships, and always listen to the families. They know their children in ways that data never will.”
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]]>The post Top 3 Takeaways from the 2024 ASU+GSV Summit appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>The 2024 ASU+GSV Summit was filled with exciting conversations and reflections about innovation in education and workforce development. The Discovery Education team enjoyed hearing the latest buzz at ASU+GSV—read on to learn more about our top three takeaways from the 2024 Summit!
1. The journey from K-12 to career is more important than ever.
During the ASU+GSV Summit, attendees learned ways that education leaders and innovators are reimagining career education like never before. To create a prepared workforce, career exploration must be emphasized during the K-12 journey. One session highlighted the importance of encouraging dreams and providing students space to dream about what their career could hold. Preparing to enter the workforce starts with exploration and interest in a career, then leads to actual skill-building and entrance to workforce readiness programs.
One notable session about bringing workforce readiness to K-12 schools emphasized the role middle schools can play in career exploration. Early and frequent introduction to various careers can allow students to select and prepare for a career quickly. With an increased emergence of Career & Technical Education programs at the high school level, middle schools have a unique opportunity to help students learn about careers so they can join preparation programs in high school and be ready for entrance to the workforce earlier than ever before.
2. New technology is paving the path of education’s future.
Education has always been a growing and changing landscape, but this year’s ASU+GSV Summit showed that the future of education is filled with new technology. Education leaders are searching for the right software and tools to support their teachers and students, and many sessions highlighted just how much new technology is available for schools to consider.
Game-based assessment was called out as an exciting innovation reaching classrooms. Game-based learning and assessment immerses students in an authentic game environment where the learning is an integral part of their enjoyment in the game. Discovery Education Senior Curriculum Designer David Wees participated in a panel discussion about how technology helps vary concepts and create “levels” for students to pass through in game-based assessments.
AI was an extremely popular topic at the 2024 Summit. Many speakers expressed a positive outlook about its emergence and encouraged educators to acknowledge its existence and embrace it in ways that fit schools’ needs! Experts at ASU+GSV suggest that educators should introduce students to responsible AI usage during their time in the classroom. Some other important points made about AI were:
- Consider how AI use will pair with other existing technology in your district
- Support teachers on usage of AI and help them feel confident when discussing it with students
- Adapt lessons to account for use of AI
- Show students how to use AI appropriately
3. Higher education is scaling and changing, too.
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]]>The post Teacher Leaders: The (Not So) Secret Catalyst to Change appeared first on Discovery Education.
]]>While teacher leaders have always been an important part of a school’s culture, this type of leadership continues to gain much needed attention and momentum in school systems nationwide.
There is such a strong need for this type of leadership that a group of educators met in 2008 to form what we know today as the Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium. This consortium, comprised of a variety of stakeholders, formed to discuss how to best foster teacher leadership so that it brings about change in student learning and achievement. In 2011, this group released the Teacher Leader Model Standards, which help teachers and school leaders foster leadership within their schools.
The Difference Between an Effective Teacher and a Teacher Leader
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An effective teacher:
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A teacher leader:
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The Power of Teacher Leadership
The Teacher Leader Model Standards
The Standards are comprised of seven domains of leadership (Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium, 2011). These domains are not meant to serve as an exhaustive checklist or job description of teacher leaders; rather, they’re meant to guide those who want to lead and support them in doing so. Each domain further contains a list of functions that provides a deeper, more granular look at what teacher leaders who excel in this domain might do.
But reading and internalizing the Standards is only the first step in developing teacher leaders. Just as our grade level standards act as the blueprint for our curriculum, our lesson plans, and our assessments, the Teacher Leader Model Standards should serve to inform the work we do with our potential teacher leaders. Very few teachers will come to us with the skills and self-assurance needed to lead their peers. Therefore, it is our responsibility to create and mentor them through learning experiences that will develop them into strong teacher leaders.
Fostering a Collaborative Culture to Support Educator Development and Student Learning
Unpacking this Standard and its functions tells us how important knowledge of adult learning theory is to a teacher leader’s success in this domain.
Functions:
- Utilizes group processes to help colleagues work collaboratively to solve problems, make decisions, manage conflict, and promote meaningful change.
- Models effective skills in listening, presenting ideas, leading discussions, clarifying, mediating, and identifying the needs of self and others in order to advance shared goals and professional learning.
- Employs facilitation skills to create trust among colleagues, develop collective wisdom, build ownership and action that supports student learning.
- Strives to create a culture where a range of perspectives are welcomed in addressing challenges.
- Uses knowledge and understanding of different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and languages to promote effective interactions among colleagues.
In addition, a teacher leader needs to possess excellent active listening skills, be able to facilitate difficult conversations among various stakeholders, and have the emotional intelligence to bring different groups together to work toward a common goal. Simply telling teacher leaders they “should” be doing these things won’t bring about change; we must work diligently to create opportunities for practice and feedback in these areas.
We all have great teachers who live within our schools—those who consistently strive to be better for their students, who seek out learning opportunities whenever possible, and who willingly collaborate with others. These teachers have the potential to share the leadership within your building. With the right opportunities and under the right mentorship, we can turn these “great” teachers into leaders who are catalysts for meaningful change.
Jaime Laforgia
References
Danielson, C. (1996). Enhancing professional practice: A framework for teaching.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership.
Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Samuels, C. A. (2010, July 23). Study: Effective Principals Embrace Collective
Leadership. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/07/23/37principal.h29.html
Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium. (2011). Model Standards Advance the
Profession. JSD, 32(3), 16-24.
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